Top 5 IoT Platforms to Look Out for in 2017
Published on : Monday 30-11--0001
The Internet of Things (IoT) is one technology that connects everything right from devices used every day to traffic signals, from automated smart homes to waste control systems and more. What’s more, this technology has made the Internet of Everything (IoE) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) a possibility with companies like Cisco, GE, Tech Mahindra, Philips, IBM, Tesco and others venturing to create an IoT panel in India.
This technology seems to have gained momentum in India especially after the Digital India drive by the government in 2016; though it is a well-known technological concept internationally since 1999. The number one position in IoT is a close contest between IBM, Google, Cisco, Microsoft and Intel, the 5 biggest technology companies in the world. Over 70% of the International 500 will have devoted digital transformation or innovation teams by the end of 2017.
The IIoT platforms are suites that allow distribution of applications that screen and control linked devices. Such platforms offer remote data collection from all connected devices in a single system. There are plenty of IoT platforms in the market, however, building an IoT application needs a platform to host and support it. We picked the list of top IIoT Platforms to evaluate the most popular, most used and fastest growing in 2017. According to IDC, “The global expenditure on digital transformation initiatives in 2019 will reach $2.2 trillion, nearly 60% higher than 2016”.
Azure IoT: The Azure Internet of things (IoT) service makes it to our list for its wide range of competences. Microsoft’s Azure Services includes the Azure IoT Hub, Azure IoT Edge, Azure Machine Learning and the Azure Stream Analytics, Notification Hubs and Power BI. These suites help to connect several devices and varied operating systems, enabling large scale data collection, analysis, and visualisation, and are known for scalability from a single point of contact to a large deployment. Companies like Rolls Royce, Schneider Electric, Jonson Controls and others use the Azure IoT Suite for the business purposes.
This platform allows you to:
- Improve industrial efficiencies with a connected factory
- Connect and screen your devices, sensors and other assets wherever they are located through remote monitoring
- Gather and analyse real-time data with a pre-installed screening solution that triggers automated alerts and requests for remote diagnostics and maintenance
- Store and analyse large data streams in-motion and envisage historical and real-time data, and
· Integrate seamlessly with back office systems and augment machine reliability with prognostic maintenance.
Recent IDC predictions suggest, “the top 5 cloud IaaS/PaaS players will control at least 75% of the market share by 2020 v/s about 50% market share in 2016
IBM Watson: The Watson IoT Platform offers you the capability to totally manage your IoT landscape and make improved real-time business decisions. You can enjoy the advantages of safe, universally dispersed data, analytics and cloud services, edge competencies with access to several suppliers and solution providers. The Automotive, Electronics, Insurance, Manufacturing, Retail and other industries can benefit from this IoT suite. The platform offers:
- Connectivity: Register and connect your devices and gateways swiftly and safely. You can also find simple instructions to connect sensors, popular devices, and gateways in IBM’s recipes site.
- Managing Information: Keep a check on how the data collected from your devices are utilised. Manage storage of data, organise actions for data conversion, and mix with other data services and device platforms to build a specialised solution to solve your business challenges.
- Real-time Analysis: Screen your real-time device data through guidelines, analytics, and control panel. Define the rules to screen various equipment conditions and trigger automatic actions that include email, alerts, IFTTT, Node-RED flows, and external services to react swiftly to critical changes.
- Hazard and Safety Management: IBM’s secure-by-design control proficiencies guard the veracity of your IoT solution through protected connectivity and access regulation for users and other applications. You can also encompass the base safety measures with risk intellect for IoT to envisage grave hazards and mechanise operational responses with policy-driven actions to mitigate consequences.
Analysts project that data from connected devices will yield insights driving the potential economic value of as much as USD 11 trillion* by 2025.
GE’s Predix IIoT Platform: General Electric’s Predix IIoT Platform aims to reshape the companies that are shaping the world by connecting machines, intelligence, and people. From instruments to boardrooms, from edge to the cloud, Predix is the industrial IoT platform that helps to drive operational and business results that matter.
- Predix is a goal oriented platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that helps to develop, distribute, operate and monetise your Industrial Internet applications. Enhanced to cater to exceptional and difficult needs of your industrial applications, Predix can be integrated with any operating asset regardless of the vendor or vintage.
- With this platform, you can capture and analyse the exceptional volume, speed, and diversity of machine data generated across the industrial world within a safe, industrial-strength cloud service.
- Based on Pivotal Cloud Foundry, Predix uses a micro-services architecture model where the applications are developed as a collection of facilities instead of one tightly joined column of code. The micro services architecture makes it much easier to alter and maintain apps, particularly those that are vital for Industrial Internet apps that run all the time every day of the year.
IDC says, “3rd Platform technologies and services will drive almost 75% of the IT spends – rising at 2X the rate of the total market by 2019”.
Oracle IoT Platform: The Oracle IoT Platform is another platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that works to help you manage your data, monitor application performance, secure data storage and analytics, develop customised applications, integrate with other services and analyse your performance to meet business goals. There are 3 essential fundamentals in Oracle’s IoT cloud service:
- Connectivity – It permits users to unfailingly and securely collect data from any device in any market through technical abstraction, thus, helping you market your product quickly
- Analysis – The platform offers real-time business analytics through big data processing, and
- Incorporation – The Oracle IoT is pre-integrated with Oracle’s PaaS and the applications on your premises using open APIs.
The Oracle cloud services provide flexible IoT network topologies, simulated device replication, stream dispensation, event stores, command, and controller functionality.
Kaa IoT Platform: Kaa is a multi-purpose open source IoT platform, which helps you build comprehensive IoT solutions, linked applications, and smart products. The Kaa Platform offers a feature-rich toolkit for the IoT product development while drastically reducing related costs, hazards and the time-to-market.
Development of IoT applications becomes easy and quick due to several architectural essentials offered by KAA. It is well-suited to almost every type of connected devices, sensors, and gateways. It offers a clear construction of IoT structures and extensions for diverse IoT applications. They can be used practically as plug-and-play components with a slight additional code on the developer’s part. Coupled with unrestrained choices for connectivity protocols and addition to analytics, these competencies make KAA an apt representation for creative IoT development.
KAA offers server and endpoint SDK components to allow data management for connected objects and your back-end infrastructure. These SDK’s can be integrated with almost all types of connected devices or microchips. The KAA server offers all the back-end facilities required to run large scale and task critical IoT solutions. The platform handles all the communiqué across linked devices, including data reliability and security, device interoperability and failure-proof connectivity.
All the IoT Industrial Platforms discussed above offer similar functionalities and prices. The speed of innovation and the market demand motivates these platform companies to keep up with each other, which means you can expect similarities in them. However, the selection of the right IoT platform depends on the market needs of your business enterprise and your industry.
-Archana Velu
https://www.indianweb2.com/2015/04/28/the-top-20-iot-companies-right-now/
http://iotindiamag.com/2016/12/10-iot-platforms-frameworks-india-connecting-world/
https://www.sam-solutions.com/blog/top-5-iot-platforms-2017/